Mendo D.A. says that the caregiver decision will change everything

District Attorney Meredith Lintott says the decision will make a “tremendous difference” in law enforcement’s ability to crack down on commercial grows. From the Ukiah Daily Journal:

“It’s finally providing us with the tools we need to enforce the medical marijuana laws fairly, equitably, and without the kind of vagueness which has allowed things – in our county in particular, of course – to expand into an area where the county has been harmed. I don’t think our medical marijuana patients have been harmed, but the residents have been harmed. Now we can say we support, we back the use (of medical marijuana) the way the law intends it to be, but we will not allow you to trounce upon the quality of the life of the other residents of our county.”

She blamed judges for what she perceives as the confusion about the law.

“I think because people themselves took it to such extremes and had highly paid, well trained, persuasive lawyers and courts accepted the arguments,” Lintott said. “Once the courts started accepting the arguments and expanding the law to anyone who was providing marijuana, then the DAs, the prosecutors, and the people growing start buying into the interpretation.” “Hopefully (local judges will) read (the ruling) and say Hey, this is the law,'” Nishiyama agreed. “It’s like I’ve argued … if you want to grow your six plants at home and smoke it all up, I don’t care, but when you’re providing for every Tom and Dick and Harry that has a marijuana recommendation, that’s when it becomes a problem for us.”

Meanwhile, it looks like the California Police Officers Association want law enforcement to interpret the ruling as license to shut down the cooperatives. They issued a “brief” which includes:

“As a result of the Court’s clear, distinct, articulation of who or what is a primary caregiver,’ the question of whether a marijuana dispensary falls within the definition is resolved — it does not! As is set forth in the law, a cooperative or collective can be formed to provide the needed marijuana for the members of that group. The Attorney General, in his recent guidelines, sets forth the legal basis for determining whether the dispensers of medical marijuana meet the definitions of a cooperative or collective – if they do not, they are not protected under the (Compassionate Use Act) and are operating illegally. It seems to be incumbent upon units of government, such as cities, to insure that businesses which want to distribute marijuana for medical use meet these legal requirements before issuing licenses and authorization to operate in their jurisdictions. Storefront dispensaries, which do nothing more than dispense marijuana, ostensibly for medical use, are illegal under both state and federal law and should not be permitted to operate in California.

As some may recall, law enforcement agencies have resisted Prop 215 from the beginning, refusing to honor judge orders to turn medical marijuana back over to patients on the basis that they would be violating federal law. Finally, one judge in Mendocino told one agency to turn it over to him so he could give it back to the patient. That action was probably one of Lintott’s issues.

Looking over the opinions, the issue of a defense having a burden to raise a reasonable doubt comes from People v. Mower, and still holds.

Essentially it held the burden of proving a legal caretaking relationship is the defendant’s, based on the rule of convenience and necessity. The court held that reasonable doubt that a legal relationship doesn’t exist rather than preponderance of the evidence is sufficient to meet the burden.

The question raised here was whether reasonable doubt can be established by simply presenting evidence or must meet the higher standard of persuasion. For the facts in this case, reasonable doubt wasn’t created by even the looser standard. But bothe the State and defendant agreed that simply presenting evidence should be the appropriate standard.

Eric is it your belief that hearing an instruction that the defense has an obligation causes jurors to be more careful in having doubts about the States evidence?

Well, it’s not so much about the care the jury puts into the deliberation, but rather who wins the push. If the evidence could be interpreted either way equally then whichever side has the burden loses the push. If the reasonable doubt standard is applied, then the interpretation favoring acquital need only be reasonable, even if the evidence against primary care status is much stronger. That could make a crucial difference in some cases.

I’d say that if a juror feels the question of guilt is a “push” that’s already way beyond a reasonable doubt. Its saying that innocence is not just possible, its actually credible.

As far as I can tell, the reasonable doubt standard was never in question and the defendant still has the burden of doing “something” to show that the caregiver relationship falls within the meaning of the law. The court earlier held that the convenience and necessity rule places that burden on the dedendant.

The question undecided was what that “something” needs to be that would guide a judge in giving a specific direction to the jury as to whether the burden has been met.

DA Lintott is mistaken. This decision changes almost nothing with regard to medical marijuana law defenses in Mendocino county. Caregiver defenses are reasonably rare, for the very reasons that the California Supreme Court puts forth in Metch. The defense requires consistent assumption of responsibility for the health, housing, or safety of the patient. It would have been wonderful if simply supplying the patient’s marijuana consistently would have sufficed in the court’s opinion. But, had that been the opinion it would have opened up new defenses for people who have other people’s marijuana. Those people now usually seek the defense of being associated cooperatively or collectively to cultivate marijuana – a defense that is not affected in any way by the Mentch decision.

Here’s a tip kids: consult a lawyer before getting into medical marijuana. Don’t wait until you are busted to see if you are legal.Its not hard to be legal, and it is so much cheaper and less disruptive to your life. Also, when it comes to statements about the law by law enforcement and or the D.A., don’t believe everything you hear.